A History of the Segregation-Discrimination Dilemma: The Chicago Experience

Black Residential Mobility: Trends and Characteristics

“…Stimulated by the growing military industry and the curtailment of foreign immigration, this huge influx of African Americans became known as the "Great Migration," and peaked in 1915 (Thornbrough, 1961). In Chicago, for example, the African American population grew from 30,000 to over 110,000 between 1900 and 1920 (Daniel, 1980). The foundations for contemporary urban residential arrangements were laid during this period.…”

“…Kushner, 1980;Thornbrough, 1961). Although residentially dispersed prior to 1900, from the turn of the century through the 1940s, African Americans were severely constricted in housing opportunities (Daniel, 1980;Thornbrough, 1961). With racial zoning in practice until 1917, and "restrictive covenants" imposed thereafter (Kushner, 1980), residential mobility for Blacks was typified by constrained opportunity and spatial segregation.…”

“…These racially consigned areas, likened to "internal colonies" (Blauner, 1969;Daniel, 1980;Morrill & Donaldson, 1976), were the basis of segregation in all areas of urban life: politics, education, occupations, and virtually every other area of social interaction (Daniel, 1980). It has been argued that this spatial segmentation of American society served to institutionalize racial inequality by manipulating the locational placement of economic and social resources and opportunities (Roof, 1972).…”

“…These "apartheid policies" (Kushner, 1980) were imposed by federal and local governments, and enforced locally by organizations created for the specific purpose of limiting Black residential mobility (Daniel, 1980). As a result, Black communities were marked by high density and overcrowded living conditions, and rapid deterioration of the built environment (Daniel, 1980;Snow & Leahy, 1980). A variety of social pathologies (e.g., crime and delinquency and drug abuse) emerged in concert with this process of ghettoization.…”

Segregation and inequality in Chicago Public Schools, transformed and intensified under corporate education reform

“…In the first decades of the 20 th century, property and business owners in Hyde Park, a neighborhood to the south of the then recognized boundaries of the Black Belt, worked together to maintain segregation and keep Black residents out of the area and, especially, Black students out of the neighborhood Hyde Park High School. The intense concentration of Black Chicagoans in the Black Belt was in part due to the coordinated efforts of the White business and property class to maintain segregated schools (Daniel, 1980). The state, however, has played the fundamental role in entrenching segregation.…”